Main description:

Dedicating objects to the divine was a central component of both Greek and Roman religion. Some of the most conspicuous offerings were shaped like parts of the internal or external human body: so-called 'anatomical votives'. These archaeological artefacts capture the modern imagination, recalling vividly the physical and fragile bodies of the past whilst posing interpretative challenges in the present. This volume scrutinises this distinctive dedicatory phenomenon, bringing together for the first time a range of methodologically diverse approaches which challenge traditional assumptions and simple categorisations. The chapters presented here ask new questions about what constitutes an anatomical votive, how they were used and manipulated in cultural, cultic and curative contexts and the complex role of anatomical votives in negotiations between humans and gods, the body and its disparate parts, divine and medical healing, ancient assemblages and modern collections and collectors. In seeking to re-contextualise and re-conceptualise anatomical votives this volume uniquely juxtaposes the medical with the religious, the social with the conceptual, the idea of the body in fragments with the body whole and the museum with the sanctuary, crossing the boundaries between studies of ancient religion, medicine, the body and the reception of antiquity.

Contents:

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction: Debating the Anatomical Votive

Emma-Jayne Graham and Jane Draycott

Chapter 1: Corpora in Connection: Anatomical Votives and the Confession Stelai of Lydia and Phrygia

Justine Potts

Chapter 2: Partible Humans and Permeable Gods: Anatomical Votives and Personhood in the Sanctuaries of Central Italy

Emma-Jayne Graham

Chapter 3: Anatomical Votives (and Swaddled Babies): from Republican Italy to Roman Gaul

Olivier de Cazanove

Chapter 4: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Use of Real, False and Artificial Hair as Votive Offerings

Jane Draycott

Chapter 5: Demeter as an Ophthalmologist? Eye Votives and the Cult of Demeter and Kore

Georgia Petridou

Chapter 6: Wombs for the Gods

Rebecca Flemming

Chapter 7: Ritual and Meaning: Contextualising Votive Terracotta Infants in Hellenistic Italy

Fay Glinister

Chapter 8: The foot as gnorisma

Sara Chiarini

Chapter 9: The Open Man: Anatomical Votive Busts Between the History of Medicine and Archaeology

Laurent Haumesser

Chapter 10: Fragmentation and the Body's Boundaries: Reassessing the Body in Parts

Ellen Adams

Chapter 11: Votive Genitalia in the Wellcome Collection: Modern Receptions of Ancient Sexual Anatomy

Jen Grove

Chapter 12: Votive Futures: an Afterword

Jessica Hughes

Bibliography

Index